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Martin O'Neill confident he can turn Sunderland's fortunes around again

Martin O'Neill insists he is the only man to lead Sunderland away from their current Premier League predicament.

Last Updated: 11/12/12 7:04pm

Martin O'Neill: Confident in his ability to turn bad run around

O'Neill was a popular appointment at the Stadium of Light 12 months ago and he oversaw a revival which took the club to safety long before the end of the 2011-12 season.

But results have been poor at the start of his second term in charge, and they take on fellow strugglers Reading on Tuesday on a run of only two wins in 23 games that has dropped them back into the bottom three.

But O'Neill is confident he can turn things around again and feels it would be pointless to make another managerial change with the club at such a low ebb.

He said: "So what do you do then? So you go and put someone else in charge, he gets a group of 12, 13 games and can't win any matches? It's the same thing.

"I don't want to sound wildly boastful, but not only am I the best man for the job, I am actually the only man for the job.

"We will steer it through, we will get calmer waters ahead - it might take us a few months to do that - and then we will see. If we are continuing for the next couple of years to be in this position, then I will certainly question it then.

"Progress eventually, no matter what you think about it, is determined by results on the pitch, and we are in a similar position, so you could say whether we have made that sort of progress or not.

"It's interesting because it's really the same squad that we have had - we still have, I think, about 19 players from last season.

"The spirit is still there, and that was the thing I noticed most, really, that it hadn't been broken, and that spirit should stand us in really decent stead.

"But spirit alone is eventually not enough. Of course you need to add and we need to get stronger if we can."